The weather has gotten very cold here in the Chicago area lately. This isn’t a surprise, we are solidly into December after all, but it has meant that I’ve broken out some of my colder weather gear. This includes one of my favorites scarves, a wide one made with pink and green yarn that fades from one color to the other. I realized when I was wearing it the other day that I never made a project journal entry for it, and that’s a shame, because it was such a fun project! So, in this post I’m going to talk about what I like to call my Fade Scarf 2.0.
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The Origins of the Fade Scarf
I love color. One of the reasons that craft is that I like to just spend time looking at pretty colored yarn, thread, and fabric. While I sometimes impulse purchase pretty things I see when I’m out shopping (who can resist a really great skein of hand dyed yarn!), I mostly use nature when I’m project planning.
Both the first and second version of this scarf were inspired by the overlapping of green and pink that I kept seeing when I was out and about. I’ve noticed this combination at the annual Chicago Botanic Garden Orchid Show, on a trip to Garfield Park Conservatory, and just wandering around my neighborhood.
I wanted the project to change color both vertically and horizontally, as a way to explore how the two colors interacted when woven. So, almost a wearable gamp. I was also interested in seeing how two colors could blend optically in different proportions. This meant that I would need to design the warp and weft in such a way that the colors transitioned gradually from side to side and top to bottom.
Because the focus of this project was going to be on the color, I didn’t want to mess with a complex weave structure. So, I decided to use my Ashford rigid heddle loom to make a simple plain woven scarf.
Fade Scarf 1.0
For the first version of the Fade Scarf, I started by taking a trip to one of my local yarn stores, Mosaic Yarn Studio. I was just looking for ideas, but I ended up buying Madeline Tosh fingering weight singles in two different colors. One was one-off in shades of pink and green (Texas Tulips is probably the closest color way sold currently), and the other a sort of green/gold called Candlewick.
Now, if you weave, you’re probably thinking “singles for a warp! that’s a terrible idea! It won’t be strong enough!” but, in my defense, I had just taken a scarf off my loom using Apothofarey’s silk/wool blend fingering weight singles, and that yarn had worked beautifully as both warp and weft in my rigid heddle loom.
So, I went to my sketchbook and started planning things out. I wanted to use the two yarns in equal proportions and I wanted to see how big I could make the scarf without running out of yarn.
I wanted a nice balanced weave structure, not too tight and not too loose, so I decided to use my 12.5 dent heddle reed. This is what I had used on my last scarf, and I was happy with the drape and density of the fabric I got. I did some quick weaving math, and figured out that I could comfortably get a width of 12″ (150 ends) and a length of 80″. That length wouldn’t include any fringe at the end, but I would need a warp length of about 100″ to account for loom waste. I decided that if I wanted fringe, I could get a few inches on either end from the loom waste, which would be enough.
I worked out the patterns for the warp and weft by breaking the pattern down into sections of 10. On the warp I started with 30 threads of the first color, then added one thread of the second color to each set of 10. So, 1 thread color B and 9 threads color A, then 2 threads color B and 8 threads color A, then 3 threads color B and 7 threads color A. I continued on in this way until I had nine threads color A and one thread color B, then I did 30 threads for color B. In total, this got me to 150 warp threads.
For the weft, the plan was to weave 16″ of color A, then do 4 sets of each 10 thread grouping until I’d gotten through them all, then 16″ of color B. In this way, the color would gradually shift throughout the scarf, in a way that was easy to keep track of.
Sadly, the Madeline Tosh yarn did not really hold up to the weaving process. I ended up with uneven tension and lots of abrasion/pilling where my heddle was interacting with the warp. About a dozen of my warp threads broke and had to be repaired. As a weft it was just fine, but I will never try to use it as a warp again.
I managed to power through, fixing the broken warps as I went, and in the end I was pretty happy with how the scarf turned out. The light, yellowy green and the speckled pink interact beautifully. I did end up needing to weave an extra 10″ of color B at the end because my weaving math was a bit off (I still haven’t gotten the hang of calculating take-up for squishy yarns), but I had enough yarn to do it, so it wasn’t a big deal.
While I love the two yarns together, I had been a bit too hasty when I was picking out my colors, the finished scarf didn’t really give me a strong pink/green interaction. So, I decided to try again.
Fade Scarf 2.0
For the second version, I wanted to go bolder with my colors, which meant that I still wanted to use a hand dyed yarn. So, I was still looking mostly at yarns aimed at the knitters, because there just isn’t a of hand dyed yarn aimed at the weavers.
It was also important to me the yarn be strong enough to stand up to the stress of rigid heddle weaving. I’d had good luck with the silk blend in the past, so I started looking for something that was at least partially silk, both for the increased strength and the lovely drape. I also wanted to find something that was plied, since that construction is usually bit stronger too.
I found Leading Men Fiber Arts Diva yarn at Yarnify while on a mini yarn crawl along the Chicago Blue Line and thought it would be a great fun to try. This silk and merino 2 ply yarn comes in large, 600 yard/150 gram skins, which I knew would allow me to make the second version of the scarf more generous in size, while still only using two skeins of yarn. And I was able to find a bolder pink, their Suns out Buns Out color way and a great multi dimensional green called Wanna Be.
With the new yarn in hand, I revised all my previous calculations. I widened the warp to the full 16″ weaving width of my rigid heddle loom, giving me 200 ends. This meant that one end was outside of heddle, but that didn’t end up causing any issues. I also altered my warping pattern a bit, to make the color transitions even smoother.
Since this was a wider warp, I divided it into two and created two warp chains. I find that any warp over about 12″ is best divided, if just to make it easier to handle.
In addition to being wider, the warp for this second version was also longer. I was aiming for a finished length of 72″ (I love a long scarf!). Once again, I was going to start and end with blocks of solid colors, and work four sets of 10 to transition between the two.
Overall, this yarn ended up being lovely to work with. It held up with no issues at all as a warp in the rigid heddle loom. There also were no issues using it as a weft. As long as I made sure to angle my yarn, I didn’t experience any noticable draw in. And it’s the perfect size for the 12.5 dent reed.
The one thing to watch out for is stretch. This yarn stretches a lot under tension. Like, enough that you don’t need to account for take-up when estimating your warp length at all. I was aiming for a 72″ finished length, so I added on the standard 20% for take-up (72 x 1.2 = 86.4) and then added 20″ to account for loom waste (86.4 + 20 = 106.4). I rounded things up to 108″ to clean up my numbers.
I ended up with a scarf that was 84″ long fresh off the loom, with an additional 10″ of usable warp still on the loom. I only stopped because I was out of green yarn. So, I could have gotten a scarf that was 94″ long, plus 6″ of fringe (mostly from the loom waste) on either side. After wet finishing, my 84″ scarf shrunk to 80″, which is still far longer than I expected. I am not at all mad about this, but I definitely need to remember this when I’m doing my calculations the future.
I have mixed feelings about how the colors turned out for this version of the scarf. Looking back on some of my inspiration images, I do think that the combo accurately reflects the color interactions I was trying to produce. And when I see the scarf on, I love it. But I feel this specific green and pink yarn are fighting with each other. The original scarf works a bit better color-wise because the green is close to a solid, so it doesn’t compete with the very variegated pink.
Fade Scarf 2.1
I want to write this project up as a pattern, so I’m planning on weaving third version. I want to stick with a 2-ply silk/wool blend because it held up so well in the loom and the drape is so nice. Also, I’ll have to adjust my weaving plan a lot less if I stick to similar yarn and dimensions.
For the next version, I may try getting the pink/green combo right or I might pick a different pairing. Either way, I’m going to go with one near solid and one very variegated yarn, which I think will be prettier overall.
Making things by hand is always a learning process. Every time I make something, I learn something new and have a better idea how to plan projects in the future. And even when things don’t go 100 percent perfectly, I still love wearing, using, and sharing my handmade objects.
Do you have a project you’ve done multiple times? Or are you thinking about getting into weaving? Let me know in the comments below or over on Instagram!